Thursday, April 30, 2009

Could the cure for HIV be lurking where we least expect it? A group of scientists think so. In a recent paper published in PLoS Biology, they contend that junk genes, that have been lurking inactive in the human DNA for millions of years, may hold the cure. They managed to reawaken one promising gene, and have demonstrated that it could potentially provide humans with immunity to HIV, by blocking the virus from penetrating cell walls. This is not as farfetched as it may seem. As remarked in the paper, there are "nonhuman primates also produce theta-defensins-18 residue cyclic peptides that act as HIV-1 entry inhibitor."